Burn, Baby, Burn
by Totenkinder Madchen
Summary: Female? Who cares? Burning stuff is more important. Now a series of ficlets, based around the BLU Pyro and various teammates. Adventure/Friendship 'fic, no pairings. Chapter six: some people are just crazy.
1. Introduction: Meet the Pyro

**Author's Note:** My first Team Fortress fanfic, written in one sitting after the plotbunny popped into my head and refused to leave. Please don't kill me, new fandom!

Obviously, the issue of the Pyro's gender is a pretty well-known one. While I would like to think that the Pyro is female, knowing Valve I'm willing to bet that it's all a convoluted red herring and we'll never find out for sure one way or the other. Fortunately, the fandom writers have stepped up to the plate. However, when considering the possibility of a female Pyro, I think it's easy to forget that the Pyro is still . . . well, the Pyro. Fiery death is pretty much the center of this character's existence. With that in mind, I decided to write a sort of introspective/friendship/humor fic. I hope I succeeded.

Warning—this fic contains egregious French. Well, it contains the Spy, which is pretty much the same thing. Most of it should be pretty clear from the context, but it doesn't contain any real plot points, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

**Rating:** T for language and references to nasty death.

**Disclaimer:** Team Fortress 2 and all associated characters and concepts are property of Valve, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

**Burn, Baby, Burn**

by Totenkinder Madchen

**Part One: Meet the Pyro**

* * *

Being a woman was secondary to being a Pyro. After all, one could get away with killing people all the time, and the other only could at certain times of the month.

The Pyro wasn't certain if people knew her gender, and frankly, she considered it a nonissue. It was probable that the Spy knew—sneaky bastard that he was. He'd probably stuck his nose into her locker, too. (Her mother had sent her the pink purse, for "weekends off base with some of those nice military men," as Mom had put it in her last letter. It was made of plastic, and wouldn't even burn properly. She'd settled for stashing it out of sight, where its non-flammability wouldn't offend her.) And it was possible that the Medic had an inkling, because when the other team's assault has been repelled and you have the luxury of actually rolling up your sleeve before getting a needle bigger than the Sniper's kidney capacity jabbed into your skin, he might have taken note of her not entirely masculine bone structure. The others? Unlikely. If you weren't a bottle, a sandwich, or a baseball, then you were probably not of interest.

Granted, being the BLU Pyro pretty much prevented developing any camaraderie. It was no secret that she liked to burn things; how could anyone _not? _The colors, blue at the heart and fading to yellow and red and orange and that wonderful greenish shade that you got when certain artificial fabrics ignited (or used to get, until the RED Scout wised up and stopped wearing nylon). The Pyro loved fire. And between her all-encompassing dedication to the business of burning things and the gigantic mask that made her sound like an obscene phone caller with a throat infection, the Pyro wasn't really part of the gang.

Not that she was actively excluded. She got her hits with the Medigun, just like everybody else, and the backslaps were never more common then when she'd toasted the RED Spy before he could get his hands on their intel. During the occasional lull in the fighting, she'd collect her rations from the machines and hole up in a quiet corner, just like the others did. But unlike them, the Pyro ate alone. It was a willingly self-imposed exile: the team gathered in groups to talk, but they never really said anything very interesting. After all, none of them talked about fire. Oh, they talked about sports, machinery, movies, liquor, women, and the best way to get brains out of your clothes. Sometimes they would mention flare guns, and she would listen in. But for the most part . . . boring.

On the rare occasions when she found herself craving company, she would climb up the tower and join the Sniper at his post. He'd seemed surprised the first time she turned up, but . . . well, neither of them had much to say when they were on duty, and if he was using the Huntsman, she could light his arrows for him. And his cigarettes, too, if he'd misplaced his lighter. The Pyro didn't mind: she never minded sharing fire.

And life carried on. Suffer an agonizing death three or four times a day. Awaken again at a "respawn" point, courtesy of a piece of highly advanced technology that still made the process feel like you were being given an intimate full-body massage by the Swamp Thing. Burn and repeat. For the most part.

* * *

The first time gender ever became an issue, the day had gone worse than usual.

The REDs had found their balls, somehow. An all-out frontal attack had been launched, and the RED Spy seemed to be everywhere—usually with his knife in someone's back. The Pyro backed up a Sniper that turned out to be that same damn Spy, had a horribly close encounter with a rotating saw blade (why did they have those things, anyway? There was no way this base was OSHA compliant) and, courtesy of mutual lack of fuel and ammo, had wound up in her first-ever Pyro-on-Pyro fistfight.

They protected the briefcase, barely. That little squeaky RED Scout almost had his hands on it when the BLU Spy shot him at point-blank range, and oh jeez, it looked like her teammate would definitely be needing some of those getting-brain-out-of-suits hints soon. The Pyro knew this because that embarrassing Pyro fistfight had taken place in the intel room, and the Spy had been smirking like all get out at the sight of two identical orange-suited fire enthusiasts shaking their weapons, dropping them, staring, and then attempting to pummel each other through inch-think asbestos-lined suits.

It had ended the only way it could—with the Pyro taking yet another fall out yet another window. By the time she had respawned, shivering a little behind the mask and trying to shake off the mental image of cold seaweedy hands, her RED opponent was unable to resume the bout due to reasons of having a butterfly knife jammed through his neck. The RED attack had been repulsed, but otherwise, the day had accomplished absolutely nothing.

That evening, she was still in a nasty mood. A Pyro, running out of fuel? _A Pyro without fire. _Worse, _two _Pyros without fire, resorting to using their fists. It was worse than annoying. It was practically _obscene. _This wasn't the kind of story she would tell to young Pyros; it wouldn't be appropriate for their tender ears. Even with a full fuel tank and all her gear back in top condition, the sheer idea of it was sickening.

This was not a night for spending time with the Sniper. In her mood, she would probably set him on fire and then douse it with his own Jarate jars. Granted, the chemicals in dried urine residue turned some beautiful colors . . . damn, that was tempting. But no, she'd never hear the end of it. The team got really whiny about friendly fire, and pointing out that she wasn't feeling friendly when she set him on fire wouldn't do much to clear the air. She settled for climbing one of the guard towers and having a sulk.

It was easy to see, even through the thick eyepieces of her mask. The sun had almost set by the time she got up there, and in the west, only a glowing streak of orange remained. The sky above it had faded to violet, the same sort of violet she saw sometimes when one of the Engineer's more ambitious projects exploded. It wasn't a burny color, but it would do. Her little vantage point was protected from the eastwards RED base by a jutting chimney, and she felt safe enough to swing her legs over the edge of the roof, deep in thought.

"It is beautiful, _non?"_

Her finger was already on the trigger of her flamethrower when the BLU Spy decloaked, leaning casually against the chimney with cigarette case in hand. The Pyro relaxed a little, annoyed that her sulking time had been interrupted by the team's most interfering member. She had nothing against the BLU Spy, but she disliked Spies in general, and had enjoyed setting them on fire many times. They often preferred silk shirts, too, which burned beautifully.

"Mrahh mronhh cahrr," she mumbled noncommittally, turning her attention back to the strip of orange on the horizon. If the Spy wanted to hang around on rooftops, that was his business. She wasn't obligated to talk to him.

"I have seen ze sky over many places," the Spy continued, apparently unfazed by the fact that she was ignoring him. "Prague. Milan. Paris," he added, rolling the R and drawing out the _Par-ee _in a way that was so obscenely French that she could practically smell the croissants. "Ahh, ze City of Lights in summer . . . _il est très magnifique. _But it is most beautiful when you have successfully fucked an enemy."

The Pyro couldn't help herself; she swung towards him, tilting her head quizzically as she wondered if she'd actually heard what she thought she'd heard.

"Mrohh raah waah yuhrrr durrhn wihh rahh Rrouht," she said.

The Spy grinned. "A crude metaphor only, _ma chère dame. _But ze RED attack, it failed, _non? _They tried to fuck us. We have fucked them." He opened his cigarette case, removed a cigarette, detached the false mustache that was clinging to it, and tapped the cigarette against his palm. "And unless I miss my guess, ze soulless demon of a RED Pyro will be thinking twice about forgetting his fire axe."

"Rrubh ihhh rrihnn," the Pyro muttered sourly.

"I am a Spy. I am ze master of ze backstab, in all its forms." The Spy cupped his cigarette in one hand and reached for his lighter with the other. The Pyro wasn't feeling particularly charitable towards him at that moment, but fire was fire, and she reached for her flamethrower before he could flick his lighter. To her surprise, the Spy waved her off.

"I am also a gentleman. And a gentleman does not allow a lady to light his cigarette."

Four shocks in one day. If this kept up, she was going to have a heart attack.

Her stunned expression must have been apparent even through her mask, because the Spy chuckled as he thumbed the silver lighter. A tiny, brilliant flame appeared, and for a moment, the Spy's eyes reflected the orange gleam of it.

A love of fire teaches you about practicality in its many forms. Daydreaming will get you killed. Not wearing protective gear will get you killed. Not paying attention will get you killed. Seeing no point in inhibiting communication now that the secret was out, the Pyro unbuckled her mask and pulled it off, blotting the sweat on her forehead with the sleeve of her suit. She watched the Spy warily, wondering what was going to happen next. She didn't care if she was female; fire was the important thing. The question was, would the rest of the team see it that way? The Soldier was notoriously illogical, and if anybody would make an issue out of someone having slightly different squishy parts, it could well be him. And the Spy, well, he had just admitted to being a backstabbing jackass. She wondered how much trouble she would get in for toasting him.

"Was it the purse?" she said flatly. Her voice sounded strange to her ears, hoarse after so many years of breathing through a filter and inhaling smoke and asbestos.

The Spy shook his head, still grinning. _Oh please,_ the Pyro thought. _Let me singe him just a little. _

"Ah, _non. _It was ze way you put ze boot to ze RED Pyro." He shook his head, and for a moment looked almost wistful. "In my day, I have seen many beautiful ladieswishing to remove ze _viande et deux légumes._ Zis is an experience zat is not so worthy of a Spy, and so, I learn to recognize ze warning signs." He took a drag on his cigarette, and once again, there was that tiny spark of flame reflected in his eyes.

The Pyro watched that spark. "Gonna tell?"

"I think not." The Spy flicked his cigarette, and a glowing spot of ash sailed off into the rapidly gathering darkness. Its weak flame had died out before it even crossed the edge of the rooftop. "Zis is nothing to do with ze briefcases or ze mission. Zis is . . . a lady's business."

And with that, he vanished.

Sneaky bastard.

* * *

The next time the team saw the Pyro, she was wearing her mask again. And the next time she saw the Spy, it was as if the conversation on the rooftop had never occurred. Though she would never admit it, she was secretly grateful: the whole business of genders had nothing to do with the price of fuel oil or anything else important, but it could have caused some annoyances with the team. It seemed to her that everything had gone back to normal.

He still wouldn't let her give him a light, though.


	2. Burning Curiosity

**Author's Note:** I've decided to continue with this on a one-shot-by-one-shot basis, when the inspiration strikes me. Since these go faster than chapters in a plotted story, and can hare off in any direction, they're quite relaxing to write. Probably won't see another one of these for a bit, though; my next upload is another chapter of "Order Up."

One quick thing to remember—I know that Klinefelter's Syndrome is a mutation, and that one can't be a carrier for it. I felt that in between the cloning, teleportations, and general lunacy, I could get away with a tiny bit more of scientific inaccuracy.

**Rating:** T for implications of horrible ways to die. Oh, and some German swearing. Pissed-off Medic is not nice medic.

**Disclaimer:** Team Fortress 2 and all associated characters and concepts are property of Valve, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

**Burning Curiosity**

* * *

Cease-fires were always strange times for both RED and BLU. They might be declared for a number of reasons: somebody had stolen someone else's intelligence and nobody was sure what to do next, both teams were so badly injured that nobody could continue for the time being, or the Administrator had just failed to give them any orders. During such times, the teams would cautiously separate, keeping an eye on each others' activities and trying not to make any sudden movements. The team members would set up guard shifts, three at a time, and those not on guard duty would find various ways to keep from being driven (more) insane with boredom.

Normally, a cease-fire was bad. In 2fort, it was agonizing. The proximity between the two bases meant that it was far too easy to see what the other team was up to, and eavesdropping would quickly become a spectator sport. Each team would quickly become privy to the other's petty grudges, longstanding feuds, odd habits, and preferred color of underwear. If the RED Demoman got drunk with the Engineer and decided that what they really needed was to form a band, then the resulting racket would keep the entire BLU team up all night. And that time when the BLU Soldier got up at three o'clock in the morning, mistook a stomachache for a gut wound, and subsequently spent the next eight hours digging his own grave and playing himself "Taps" on a xylophone made out of spent mortar brasses? Yeah, they never heard the end of that one.

The Pyro hated cease-fires. Quite apart from everything else, the phrase "cease-fire" was an insult to fire, and she refused to say it.

The first few days would be all right, though—or at least, not terrible. It was nice to be able to go up on the roof without being afraid of the RED Sniper, and if she wanted to, she could spend an afternoon cleaning and polishing (and, though she'd never let anyone know, modifying) her equipment. By the third day, though, that would have lost its charm. By the fourth, she was officially antsy, hoping for something to happen and trying to distract herself by going over every inch of the base looking for new materials she might not have test-burned yet.

If it ran into a week, she officially lost it.

Not that she was the only one. Put nine career mercenaries with serious mean streaks in close quarters and then keep them from fighting, and tempers were guaranteed to run high. In 2fort, with the enemy barely a rocket away and the Soldier fondly recalling every time he'd raced past General Patton and personally defeated a thousand Nazis while armed with nothing but his teeth and a photograph of a bald eagle, it was double the misery.

In a desperate attempt to keep them from all murdering each other, the Medic—yes, the Medic. That Hippocratic thing must have been acting up again—had devised a number of distractions. Most of them involved alcohol: "Get zem drunk, und zey cannot find zeir own fingers, let alone fire veapons mit zem," as he had put it. But on the other hand, he was still the Medic: the first person to lose a drinking contest would be declared "fair game," with predictably humiliating results. Only the fact that the respawn machinery was turned off during times of relative peace kept them from giving up entirely and just using each other for target practice.

Two weeks after the disastrous Pyro-on-Pyro fistfight, both RED and BLU found themselves in one of the dreaded 2fort cease-fires. They had torn up the turf for days after arriving on base, annihilating each other with the ease and familiarity of old enemies, but the Powers That Be had called a halt for some reason and now everybody was eyeing each other warily over the fences. It was three days in, and the Pyro was beginning to feel good and restless.

She'd checked and double-checked her gear: everything was spotless. She'd cleaned all the soot stains off her asbestos suit and applied a fresh coat of sealant to her boots and gloves. Her flamethrower was beautiful, in perfect working condition, sitting there and just begging her to squeeze the trigger. She knew the Sniper had plenty of Jarate stored up: the Saxton Hale program wasn't one you could just stop for a day, and part of "always being prepared" included hoarding Jarate the way the Soldier hoarded canned soup. If she set someone on fire, the Sniper would probably be able to douse them without too much trouble. But it was hard to be around the Sniper just now; he and the Spy both chainsmoked to relieve their nerves during cease-fires, and seeing that little orange glow reflected on eyes and glasses was a horrible temptation.

Once, she'd even gone so far as to take up a position at the biggest window, trying to spot what the RED team was up to. From what little she could see, they were almost as worked up as her own side. She'd spotted the RED Scout fleeing from the RED Heavy, sandwich in hand, while the larger man called him several words that she would definitely have to ask one of the multilingual team members about. The Medic, doubtless as bored as their own Medic was with no near-fatal wounds to treat, had been reading a biography of the Marquis de Sade and apparently dog-earing pages for future reference, a fact that worried the Pyro somewhat. She made a mental note to put the flamethrower on the Well Done setting the next time she ran into him.

But she couldn't watch the other team forever. They'd get suspicious about her, and she knew that when the cease-fire was ended, she'd be the first one being aimed for. She already took a fair amount of bullets, grenades, and thrown jars of unmentionable liquids, and that was just because she liked to set them on fire. because she set them on fire. God only knew what would happen if they thought she had an ulterior motive too.

Yet if she couldn't watch them, what _could _she do? The Pyro was reaching that point where even the flick of a match got her fingers twitching, and the yellow lights in the hall seemed to just beg to erupt into orange and gorgeous flaming red. And the team . . . well, they weren't making this easy on her. When she was in this mood, fire was everywhere, and most of the BLUs used it.

The Sniper and the Spy were both inveterate smokers. The Demoman had his bombs, the Soldier his rockets, and both were liable to cause the kinds of explosions that left craters and burning pieces of shrapnel. The Scout liked cherry bombs. The Heavy couldn't cook. And the Engineer . . . oh dear. If she tried to take refuge in the Engineer's workshop, it'd be a disaster. She knew it would only be so long before he pulled out the welding torch. And then—sizzle, blister, thank you mister.

The only refuge now was the infirmary, presided over by the Medic. A man who had turned germophobia into a fine art was one who wouldn't indulge a firework habit or tolerate smoking within the pristine walls of his infirmary. (Not when there was already all that blood to clean off the walls.) The Pyro was not particularly fond of the Medic—she considered him a nonentity, since he was so far removed from the lovely world of fire—but when her fingers were tingling and she couldn't help remembering that it would be so very, very easy to make it all look like an accident, she needed to find some place to hide. The infirmary would do.

When she came in, the Medic was sitting at his desk, holding a small vial up to the light that streamed in through the window near the ceiling. At first, the Pyro thought it was a bloody urine sample (had the Sniper's kidneys finally given out?), but the Medic gave it a shake, and the yellow fluid blended seamlessly with the red and vanished. It was just a blood sample.

"If you are looking for ze Sniper, he is up in ze tower," the Medic said. "Zat _geisteskranker Mann _zinks ve vill be back at var any second now."

The Pyro shook her head clumsily. "Mruhh borhh," she mumbled through her mask. The Medic raised an eyebrow and didn't bother to hide his reaction: past moments of the Pyro being "just bored" had kept him very busy during cease-fires.

"Und you haff killed someone?" he hazarded. "Zer respawn points vill not be vorking yet. Vhere is ze body, und how many pieces is it in?"

The Pyro shook her head again. "Mho bohee," she said. "Borhh."

"Bored, but zer is no body. Very vell. Vhat is it you vish me to do? Hold your hand for you?" The Medic made a shooing gesture with his free hand, his eyes fixating on the blood sample again. "_Auf Wiedersehen, _insane person. I haff vork to do."

"Whaayuuh doih?" the Pyro said. She tilted her head a little, looking at the vial. She didn't get to draw blood as much as she liked; it was a beautiful color (though too dark to be as beautiful as fire) but burning an enemy alive would result in charred, swollen tissue and very little actual bleeding. The axe was better—but an axe would never be as good as fire, and she considered it a bit of a comedown to have to use the axe. With an effort, she dragged her thoughts back to the matter at hand.

The Medic seemed surprised by her question. "Vhat am I doing? I am analyzing blood samples from our enemies. Ze RED _Schweinhunden _alvays pull out ze syringes before zey collect much, but if I find enough of zem, I can haff a good sample of zeir blood. Examining zese samples is a good vay to learn about our enemies. Ze RED medic's chromosomal structure is _pathetic."_

"Ihh thahh whhuh bluhh urnhh ellohh?"

"You have no knowledge of biology? Blood is a suspension und not a solution." The Pyro gave him a blank look, which had no effect through the mask. She communicated the same thing by shrugging her shoulders theatrically. The Medic shook his head. "It means blood is not all red, Dummkopf. It is red because zer are tiny little _Blutzellen _in ze fluid, und vhen it sits too long, zey sink to ze bottom. Zat vas vhy ze blood looked yellow." He shook the vial for emphasis. "Vhy are you asking zis? You cannot be bored enough to actually care."

The Pyro crossed her arms. "Borhh," she repeated. "Anh ihhiihkillhh mruhhwohh, huu gehh hihhy."

"I am not familiar vis zis vord 'pissy,' but I do not zink you are referring to ze urination. But you are correct in ze essence: if you vere to kill someone, I vould not be jumping up and down for joy. Zis is one of ze few intelligent zings I haff heard from you." He said it contemptuously, but the Pyro wasn't fazed. Even the Medic got antsy during downtime.

"Ho ihh bluhh hinhrehhin?" she asked.

"It is _blood," _the Medic said, raising an eyebrow. That seemed to answer that question: his tone said _How can blood _not _be interesting? _"But zer are many interesting zings to find in it, yes. Quite aside from ze RED Medic's laughable chromosomes . . ." He rose from his chair and moved over to the far wall, where a small refrigerator had been hooked up to an independent generator. (The base might lose power, but Gott forbid the tissue samples go off.) Nudging the door open with his toe, he extracted several different vials. They all looked the same to the Pyro, but there was something familiar about the way the Medic looked at them: hungrily, gleefully. It was the same way she looked when she lit her first match of the day.

"Zis is zer RED Heavy's blood. For such a large man, I am sorry to say he has quite good cholesterol; he vill not be dying of a heart attack. Too bad. On ze other hand, he is a carrier for Klinefelter's Syndrome, so I can tell him his son vill haff _große Brüste." _The Medic absentmindedly made the universal symbol for 'impressive assets,' and the Pyro stifled a snort of laughter. "Und zis vial is for ze RED Scout. Zere is no sign of tumors yet, vhich is most impressive for all ze radiation he drinks. Ze constant Medigun use must be saving ze scrawny little schwein from his own stupidity."

He produced another vial, and frowned for a moment. "Zis vun came from ze RED Spy. But vhen I analyzed it, it vas identical to ze RED Heavy's."

"Hpyy happhin' mhah bluhh hamhull?" the Pyro suggested. The Medic gave her a dirty look, and she lowered her head, pretending to be contrite.

"It is not like you to be making jokes, big _Dummkopf_." His eyes narrowed, and his hand went to the bonesaw lying on his desk. The Pyro raised one hand quickly and fumbled in her belt pouch for her lighter with the other. A flick of the wheel, and a dancing flame slid beautifully over the tips of her thick fireproof gloves. The Medic nodded, satisfied that she wasn't a Spy, and put his bonesaw down.

It was a bit too late, though. The lighter was in her hand, and there was a warmth on her fingers. The merest tinge of soot flecked the surface of her gloves, and the Pyro rubbed her fingers together, watching in fascination as it was wiped away. Not many people knew that soot could be beautiful too . . . it reacted so differently with different surfaces. Sometimes there would be none at all, only ugly melted patches—but even those could be beautiful in their own way, warped and buckled as they were by the passing of the all-powerful fire. The Pyro's breath rasped heavily through her mask as the last of the soot was wiped away. Her grip tightened on her lighter.

The Medic saw the danger signs and, ethical or not, he didn't want Pyro losing her tenuous grip on reality. Not in the middle of the infirmary, anyway. "Und ZIS," he said loudly, jerking her out of her increasingly warm and orange-tinged thoughts, "is ze blood of ze RED Pyro."

With some effort, the Pyro loosened her grip on the lighter. The RED Pyro—the one whose presence had forced her to use her fists. Sheer hatred overwhelmed her pyromania, at least for the moment. "Whuhh in hii?" she asked, hoping that this sample showed evidence of tumors. Lots of tumors. And maybe a degenerative condition that would make him _extremely _sensitive to heat. Or maybe hemophilia . . .put her Axetinguisher to his neck and watch him bleed out . . .

"It is an odd sample," the Medic said. He was frowning again. "Ze tests are not conclusive at all; zere is so little blood, since ze suits you Pyros vear are too thick for ze syringes to penetrate. But ze strange zing is zat it does not match your sample."

That got her attention. The Pyro turned, cocking her head. "Whuhh? Hwhyy shuhh ihh?" she said.

"Because zey often do," the Medic said flatly.

"Heyy hu?"

The Medic steepled his fingers and peered over them, eyeing her through his round glasses. He seemed skeptical that she was even asking the question. "Even if you are _geisteskrank, _you must have seen ze resemblances between our teams. Do you never vonder about zis?"

At that, the Pyro blinked.

Huh.

Sure, she was aware that the RED Heavy and the BLU Heavy shared some superficial similarities. But really . . . what did that matter? Their colored uniforms made them easy to tell apart, and anyway, once she got to individual facial features everything was a little hazy for the Pyro. Instead of appearances, she collected impressions of people: the way light reflected in their eyes or on their faces, the way they smelled when they burned. Sniper's distinctive aroma of stale coffee, tobacco, sweat, and unspeakable methods of fighting. The dull finish of the Soldier's helmet, and the grating roar of his voice when he was butchering some famous military strategist. Facial features were . . .

Hmmm. Now that she did think about it, there was some similarity.

The Medic looked stunned. "Zis never occurred to you?" he said disbelievingly. "Zis is only ze biggest zing ve haff to think about! Death? Death is nothing here. Ve are two nine-man teams, fighting a var in vhich ve are constantly cloned, und yet you never ask vhy ze two groups look alike?"

The Pyro shrugged. "Neherhh thouhh habouhh hii."

"Never thought about-" the Medic slapped his forehead with his palm. "Never thought about it? I told you zose gasoline fumes vere not good for you. _Verpiss dich _und let someone else use your brain cell, _schwachsinniger!_"

It probably helped that the Pyro didn't speak German. However, she knew when the Medic's insults had transitioned from simple boredom or affectionate abuse to actual hostility, and knew that she wouldn't find any more distractions here. For one thing, she had just realized that his shirt was a polyester-cotton weave, and that always burned _beautifully._

With that in mind, she took leave of the infirmary, leaving the angry Medic behind. She tucked her hands under the straps of her suspenders (there were no pockets on the flameproof suit) and wandered vaguely down the hall, occasionally whistling an aimless tune behind the mask.

It was strange, now that she thought about it. She sifted through her collection of impressions . . . and yes, the BLU Demoman's fondness for alcohol was mirrored by the RED Demoman. There was something else, too, and after a few moments' contemplation, she came to the conclusion that they were both one-eyed _and _black. (Though why the Demoman called himself that, she had no idea. He was more of a burnt sienna. Even ash wasn't _black _black.)

Both Scouts shared a Boston-by-way-of-Brooklyn accent and a fondness for radiation-laced drinks. The RED Spy shrieked and wriggled just like the BLU one whenever she set him on fire. Both Engineers built very efficient guns, which hurt like hell whenever you skidded round a corridor and ran smack into them. It all seemed a little too coincidental.

But the Medic said the other Pyro wasn't like her? That was . . . strange.

Human instinct is a curious thing, and human insanity even more so. The Pyro was not a stable person at the best of times. But when she began turning the similarities over in her mind, some part of her seemed to realize that this was dangerous territory. Every human mind tries to ignore the things that will upset it, and this was no exception. The world was a safer and simpler place when all she cared about was fire.

Wrapping her hand around her lighter, she shook her head and pushed the thoughts aside. It was clear to her now that her need to see something burn couldn't be ignored much longer; her hands were shaking where they gripped the lighter, and she almost thought she could smell the soot and seared flesh. But now the Medic was pissed at her, and with everybody else, the temptation to see what they looked like on fire would be too strong.

Nobody ever said that inanimate objects couldn't be burned, though . . .

The question of identities and resemblances, especially that of the RED Pyro, still niggled at the back of her mind. But the Pyro knew what was important in life.

She doused a bowling ball in gasoline and left an eight-foot track of fire down the corridor.


	3. Friendly Fire

**Author's Note:** Inspiration is fickle. I'm finishing "Masks" and working on the next chapter of "Order Up," but I wound up writing this during an interim. Hope you like it. This one turned out a little plotless, I'm afraid—more a slice of life than anything else.

But believe it or not, this story now has . . . well, not a plot, but a structure. There will be nine chapters total, each dealing with the Pyro's interactions with one member of the team. The first chapter was the Spy, the second was the Medic, and this one is the Sniper. And yes, I said nine, not eight. Think I'd miss the chance for a little more Pyro versus Pyro?

"Gorton" is a reference to the man who was Prime Minister of Australia in 1968. I don't know if there were Labourites pushing income-tax hikes in Adelaide during that time, but it occurs to me that someone, somewhere, is always bitching about Labour and taxes, so it didn't seem inconceivable.

Medic's dialogue is a very bad translation of "idiot! Leave that man alone!"

**Disclaimer:** Team Fortress 2 and all associated characters and concepts are property of Valve, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

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**Chapter 3: Friendly Fire**

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The Sniper was grouchy. Again.

Well, technically speaking, it wasn't his fault. At least, that was what the Pyro figured. She had been in a rare good mood after the last skirmish (that RED Engineer had made such a funny squawking noise when she ignited the pool of kerosene he'd been standing in), and celebrated by climbing up to the Sniper's perch on the north tower. What she'd found there had been twenty-seven used coffee filters, a mess of dirty cups, and a Sniper who was pissy in the sense that was _less _commonly applied to a follower of the Saxton Hale program. He'd just gotten a letter from his parents: his father had found out that he wasn't a doctor after all, and was using words like "disappointed" and "ashamed." The Sniper, on the other hand, was using words that the Pyro had never heard before. She was learning a lot about where kangaroos came from.

"'s not like I'm some sort of mad gunman," the Sniper complained at last as he brewed his twenty-eighth pot of coffee. "I never kill anyone what I'm not paid to kill! An' there's worse jobs out there. Mate o' mine wound up mucking out the sewers'n Mexico City." He lit the little Primus stove under the pot, which distracted the Pyro momentarily; his voice faded into silence as she started at the leaping flame. When she came back to earth, though, he was still talking, apparently unaware that she'd zoned out in the first place.

"Mrrmph," she said. When the Sniper was in one of his moods, she didn't even try to talk: it was easier to make random mumbling noises, since he wouldn't listen to them anyway. Perils of being part of a group, even such an isolated part as the Pyro was.

"Good job. Good pay. I can buy mum an' dad a new house if I want to." The Sniper seemed unable to leave the point alone. Personally, the Pyro thought he had a bit of an obsessive personality. "An' dad never minded when it was helpless furry things I was shootin'. Man's got his priorities all mixed up."

He paused there, apparently waiting for a response. The Pyro shrugged. "Mra mhrahha mrooh muh mra mrahha mrooh," she mumbled. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do: good advice, even if she had cribbed it from the Engineer.

That seemed to surprise the Sniper. Despite the fact that he had paused, it had been more a nod to the facade of conversation rather than in any expectation of a meaningful response: as a rule, the Pyro didn't contribute much to a discussion. The Pyro was a bit surprised herself . . . but hell, she was feeling good, and between the cigarettes and the Huntsman, the Sniper was almost an admirer of fire in his own way.

"Guess so," he said after a moment's consideration and another gulp of coffee. The Pyro shrugged theatrically, watching the Sniper's face for a moment. Was he going to make an issue of it? No? Good. Solitarily-inclined as she was, she still sometimes liked being around other people, and the Sniper's similar tendencies made things easy on her. Put two loners in the same spot, and they can get that all-important social interaction thing out of the way without actually having to make an effort. She'd have to set him on fire if he decided to get awkward on her, and leather didn't burn very well. It just sort of smouldered.

Luckily, the Sniper decided not to question her sudden impulsive bit of advice. Instead, he fumbled in the mess of dirty cups next to his seat and produced a relatively clean one. "Coffee?"

The Pyro considered it for a moment. She didn't drink anything but water most days: when you spend your time in a sweltering fireproof suit, downing caffeine was pretty much asking to pass out from dehydration on the battlefield. As a matter of course, though, the Sniper drank decaf.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd had coffee. For a moment, memories swam to the surface—dim impressions of color and sound. A kitchen, the smell of hot coffee, the crisp scrape of a match as someone lit the gas burner . . . and it was gone again. Coffee, though. Coffee would be nice. She nodded exaggeratedly and held out her hands for the cup. The Sniper glanced down at it, back at the Pyro, and tried to discreetly buff out the dark brown stain in the bottom of it before pouring the cupful.

Decaf or not, the coffee was strong: she could smell it even through the half-choked filter on her mask. She fumbled in her belt pouch, fishing out a plastic straw, and delicately inserted it into the cup—half-expecting it to stand up on its own when she let go. She noticed the Sniper pretending not to look as she raised her free hand to her mask, but he would be quickly disappointed; instead of pulling it off, she loosened the filter on the cheek piece and slipped the straw in through the gap. "Mrihh mruhhd," she said after a moment. "Huhgharrh?"

"Right on, mate," the Sniper said, passing her a (thankfully clean) jar half-full of gluey brown sugar lumps. The Pyro took six, dropping them in with the intensity of a brain surgeon and stirring until they were as dissolved as they were going to get. When she extracted her straw, there was a thick coating of tarry sugar sludge on the end. Mmm, perfect.

"'s how my mum takes it," the Sniper said after a moment. The Pyro pretended to be paying attention, but she was mostly busy slurping sugar off the straw. One more advantage for the mask: as long as she was pointing her face in someone's general direction, they couldn't tell she wasn't looking at them. "Black, with enough sugar t'choke a hummin'bird." The Pyro mmmphed vaguely, still concentrating on the sugar.

Contrary to popular belief, the Pyro was not stupid. Her intelligence was fine: what she didn't have was self-control (although she was a little low on sanity too). She was impulsive, far too impulsive. The Pyro lived this way because giving into those impulses—which often involved various amusing forms of flaming death—had given her what she considered an ideal life, and there was absolutely no reason to act otherwise. The few hats she owned had been acquired entirely on a whim (she couldn't help it: the beanie was funny, and came in such nice bright colors) and if she wanted sugar, she'd damn well eat it. Especially sugar half-dissolved in coffee—coffee made in an unwashed pot, so black that she could taste the acid and tannin. It tasted burnt, like smoke.

Mmmm, smoke and sugar.

The Sniper was talking again, complaining about how his parents didn't appreciate his "professional skill" and the possibility that they'd wanted a girl. The Pyro caught about one word in five. Boy, the Sniper didn't talk much, but when he did there was no shutting him up. She privately wondered if all that time spent out in the middle of nowhere had gotten him into the habit of talking to himself; after all, this was less a conversation than a monologue.

Fortunately for both parties, though, the Pyro didn't care enough to actually pay attention to said monologue. She made mmphing noises occasionally, slurped her coffee-flavored sugar syrup, and let the Sniper get the weight off his chest. The rant carried through the topic of his parents, his job, his mother's expectations of grandchildren, the reasons the Sniper wouldn't be providing said grandchildren, the women who would also not be colluding in the aforementioned production, women in general, women assassins, assassins, the kind of money assassins get paid, and the cost of living on that kind of money. He was just getting started on the new income tax in Adelaide ("pushed through by those bollocking Labourites and that bloody Gorton, likes to make out he's a larrikin, wallaby-faced bastard") when both of them were distracted by a bellow from the foot of the tower.

The Sniper instinctively snatched for his rifle and kukri, but the Pyro put out a hand. She recognized the numerous yells of pain and fear—the kind made by blunt impact trauma, by bladed weapons, by flare guns, bullets, and delicious burning—and that yell hadn't been any of them. Spend a lot of time in a gas mask with tinted eyepieces, and you learn to navigate by sound. The bellow had been one of frustration, but not at a lethal level. She motioned for him to put down his gun and, mug still in hand, stuck her head over the edge of the perch to peer down.

Ah. She should have known. The BLU Scout, apparently not content with having just stolen enemy intelligence and put a significant length of the Sandman through the RED Medic's brain pan, was celebrating in his own highly specific way: namely, by clinging to the BLU Heavy's back, whooping like a rodeo rider, and yanking on his collar until the gigantic man turned his team color.

_"Idiot! Lassen Sie diesen Mann allein!" _the Medic screeched, racing across the open field towards the frantically flailing Heavy.

"Wahoo! I got me a live one heah!" the Scout was yelling as he waved the still-bloody Sandman above his head. "Hey, Deutschbag, watch out! I think it ain't housebroken!"

The Heavy reeled backwards, crashing violently into the base of the tower. The Pyro and the Sniper instinctively clutched at the edge as they felt the supports creak slightly, and the Scout gave out a muffled squeak as he was trapped between a Russian and a hard place. The Medic slapped his forehead with one gloved hand and hurried forward, muttering in German while he yanked ineffectually on the Heavy's arm. "If you sqvash him, I vill not be putting him back together," he warned, grappling with the Heavy and trying to keep his glasses from sliding down his nose. The Heavy, who was beginning to get his breath back, gave a grunt and slammed one elbow into the Scout's gut. The Bostonian proceeded to teach Pyro some interesting things about the Heavy's relationship with his mother, father, sister, cousin, and family dog.

"Oi, you lot! Keep it down!" the Sniper yelled, waving his kukri. "Some of us are tryin' to be professional up here! Take it out behind the pub like normal people an' leave us be, you sheepshagging sods!"

"Leetle man should be quiet!" roared the Heavy. "Small bunny boy is learn lesson about making angry Heavy Weapons Guy!"

"It ain't my business what goes on wi' two consentin' adults and all, mate, but yer not exactly makin' it easy to keep an eye out! I hear ya bellowin' an' I think the bloody Demoman's got his arse caught in a mincin' machine!"

"Stupid coward, hide in your tower," the Heavy growled as he snatched at the Scout. "Real men are fighting!"

So the Sniper grabbed a jar.

It was, in retrospect, one of the most interesting things the Pyro had seen in a long time. It wasn't fire . . . no, it would never be as good as her First Friend. But the high-pitched yelp from the Scout, the bellow like a wounded bull from the Heavy, and that delicious moment of shocked realization as the blue-coated medic realized just why his clothes were now a sickly shade of pale green . . . ooh, that was _nice. _She giggled a little under the mask, watching with rapt interest as the Heavy shook off the barely-conscious Scout and began clambering his way up the tower, a knife between his teeth. The Sniper scrambled for his Huntsman and the Pyro, without a second thought, flicked her lighter.

Later, when the mess had been cleaned up and all five thoroughly battered, toasted, and stinking participants had been hauled up in front of the Soldier, it turned out that even career mercenaries can be put on punitive kitchen duty. Pyro didn't mind, though.

According to the Spy, cheese burned.


	4. Where there's Smoke, there's Pyro

**Author's Note:** I appear to be suffering from a very strange and specific breed of writer's block, which only affects stories that I really, really need to work on. Please forgive me, neglected fandoms!

In the meantime, I've been oddly inspired regarding the Pyro. So here's another chapter, featuring another snippet of team interaction between our favorite fire-obsessed institutionalization candidate and a member of the BLU team. This one isn't really . . . funny, per se, but there are a couple of humorous asides and no real drama.

Language cheat sheet:

Не беспокойтесь – Russian for "Don't worry"

Mhihn – Pyroese for "mine"

Arschgesicht – I'm ashamed of you for thinking words like that. Go sit in the corner.

**Disclaimer:** Team Fortress 2 and all associated characters and concepts are property of Valve, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

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**Chapter 4: Where there's Smoke, there's Pyro**

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One of the best things about fire, the Pyro thought, was that it was uncomplicated.

Oh, sure, the methods of _making _fire were complicated, and _controlling _it even more so. (Not that the Pyro ever considered herself as controlling it. She figured more that she was letting it out to play.) Her homemade flamethrower was a fearsome beast cobbled together from the guts of other destroyed pieces of equipment, the whole thing scarred from years of use and lined with welding seams where the Pyro had made emergency repairs in a half-hour of downtime between rushes for the capture points. There were pumps, a primitive filtration system, the separate power source for the small pilot light, and all that stuff. But that wasn't fire; it was just what people used to call fire up. The flame itself was simple.

She liked simplicity. It was another of the many, many reasons as to why she lived the way she did. Gender wasn't important, really, but being a female among males would have led to complications; a mask and a habit of mumbling solved that problem. The world outside was an insane mess that didn't understand her love of things that burned (why yes, Dr. Addison, I _do _remember you, and I bet your widow remembers me too), so she chose to live a life where the rules were simple and her talents were necessary. The Pyro valued simple things.

The Heavy Weapons Guy was simple. No, he wasn't stupid; the Pyro had seen him reading books in Russian, books whose size made her fingers itch for matches. But he seemed to function on a basic level that many of the other team members didn't quite understand. He, more than the Scout's silly bat, was a force of nature. Uncomplicated, pervasive, hostile, and loud.

Sometimes, his voice made her ears ache. The Pyro, valuing her privacy, deliberately chose rooms in every base that nobody else wanted (in 2fort, she bunked next to the machine shop, while her digs at Dustbowl had come with a dead coyote stinking up the remains of the carpet) but no matter where she holed up, she would always hear the Heavy. His bellowing voice and thunderous stomping often disrupted her work. Worse, he appeared to have no respect for fire, and scoffed at her favorite ambush tactics.

On the other hand, he often had Dalokohs bars. And while biology was for the most part irrelevant, there were sometimes when the Pyro just wanted some damn chocolate.

He was also friends with the Medic. When not reading his Russian tomes or tuning Sasha or doing any of the other innumerable things that didn't concern the Pyro, he would sometimes be found in the infirmary, carrying boxes or restraining squirming patients for the worryingly-efficient doctor. There were a few times when the Pyro had poked her head around that door, usually with a worse set of burns than usual, and seen the two of them sitting at a desk and talking in low voices. Once, the Medic had been making coffee, while the Heavy sat quietly with a stray cat purring on his lap. It had been a remarkably peaceful scene, the kind the Pyro really didn't understand and didn't like to think about. Practically domestic, and a little sweet.

Forty minutes later, that same Heavy had spent $520,000 worth of ammunition to turn the RED Spy into a fine pink mist. It just goes to show that you never can tell, especially not with a force of nature.

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Another day, another bloody battle—this time at the Granary, a hole in the wall that the Pyro had hoped to never see again. For once, she was in line with the rest of the team: everybody loathed the Granary, which had the dry dusty stench of old wheat and made the Pyro cough. Stationed there, she worse the mask and filters twenty-four hours a day—even while asleep, which probably contributed to what happened next.

The BLU team's budget tended to fluctuate. If the team had been losing lately, then the Administrator would reduce the equipment expenses fund accordingly; "if you want better weapons, then you win," she would tell them over the rattle of a cigarette packet being smacked against a desk. The Pyro had reluctantly put off ordering the sledgehammer she had had her eye on, and begun using each mask and filter longer than she usually did. If she had a little more difficulty breathing, so what? A bad lung, unlike a new kerosene mix, wasn't anything _important._

She didn't even notice when, late one night, she began to get a little lightheaded while extinguishing a failed experiment; whenever she spent more than sixty or so hours awake, her brain always got a little more skewed than usual. She blinked a little and coughed a bit behind her mask as she waved the thick black smoke away from her eyepieces, squinting as she tried to get a good look at the charred, melted mess where her work table used to be.

Then the Pyro coughed again, and again. The world began to waver around her. She ignored it, trying to focus on her work, but the coughs got worse and her chest began to constrict. Finally, she had begun to wonder if another layer of asbestos had gotten into her lungs, but by that point it was impossible for her to even see straight. She staggered to her feet, mmmphing a little through her mask. Her knees gave way before she could move more than a few steps, and the Pyro collapsed onto the floor, cracking her skull against the concrete. Bright lights erupted in front of her eyes, and she fainted.

The first thing she heard as she swam back to consciousness was a guttural roar of a voice. The floor thumped and vibrated under her with heavy footsteps. The door slammed. All the sounds and sensations were distant, as if the world itself was swaddled in asbestos, and her vision was dim and murky. Her head throbbed, and her muscles clenched as she curled up into a ball, hacking weakly against the filter of the mask.

"Bloody pyromaniac!" she could hear the Sniper saying, broken up by his own hacking coughs. The room was beginning to clear: somebody had flung the doors and windows open, and the smoke was bleeding out. Then there was a babble of voices, all incoherent through the mask and the Pyro's own oxygen-starved brain. Belatedly, she realized that she must have been crippled by smoke inhalation—a problem she had been, strangely enough, unequipped to recognize after years under a gas mask.

She tried to suck in a breath, but her lungs felt thick, and she coughed again. There was something wet against her lips, smeared on the defective filter. With a groan, she raised a hand and fumbled with the filter, trying to unscrew it. Her fingers felt weak and her grip failed.

"Dummkoppf," a familiarly irritated voice muttered. The Pyro squinted, but the only thing she could see through the soot-smeared lenses was a blur of pale blue. Nevertheless, the word itself was a dead giveaway, and she had no doubt that the Medic was kneeling next to her. More, unprintable, German followed as the Medic issued brisk orders, his own voice muffled. Probably put a damp cloth over his mouth. Emergency procedures when dealing with fire. Huh. The Pyro blinked muzzily behind her mask, amused by the notion. As a rule, minimizing the damage from a fire was the least of her concerns.

Something blocked out the light, and hands the size of canned hams slid under her and lifted her up. The sudden movement made her head spin, and she hacked out another cough, her body convulsing with the effort.

"Be still, little fire man," she heard the Heavy rumble. "Не беспокойтесь. Doctor will fix you."

The Pyro coughed again, her vision blurring as her eyes watered. "Put me down!" she tried to say, but between the cough and the mask, it came out a weak "Mmumphow!"

"Zis is ze most ridiculous zing I haff ever seen," the Medic muttered. The world was reeling around the Pyro with every step the Heavy took, and she could only vaguely guess at the doctor's location—following behind, perhaps? Yes, he was usually right behind the Heavy. (Something that had once made the Scout stifle a laugh when the Demoman had said it, for some reason.) "A pyromaniac, falling over from smoke inhalation. Zis is like treating ze Scout for footballer's knee. Bring him in, Herr Heavy, und ve vill get zat mask off."

_That _got the Pyro's attention. Not only did her mask normally protect her from fire and smoke, it was also a very simple way to prevent awkward issues from arising within the team. And the Pyro liked keeping things simple. Without hesitation, she summoned every bit of strength and hurled herself sideways, toppling out of the Heavy's grasp and landing hard on the concrete.

The mask turned her drawn-out shout of objection into an eerie yodel, but the faceplant and the yowl had the right effect anyway. The Heavy yelped as she landed hard on his toes, making the big man lurch and stumble backwards and narrowly avoiding crushing the Medic against a wall. The Pyro flopped on her stomach towards the door, ignoring the burning sensation in her muscles and the new round of coughs already trying to shut down her lungs. "My mask!" she managed to say, though it came out mumbled. "Muhhmy mahk! _Mhihn!"_

"Idiot! Your mask is going to kill you!" the Medic shouted, barging around the still-unsteady Heavy and grabbing the Pyro by the back of her fire suit. "I haff been ordered to keep zis team in fighting strength, und no _scheisskoppf _crazy man vill intefere vith zis duty. Now hold ztill, and let me take ze mask!"

The Pyro clutched at her mask with both hinds. "_Mhihn!" _she stubbornly repeated, kicking the Medic in the shins. He squawked and let go, and the Pyro flopped back onto the ground. "Mhihn! Mhihn! Mhinh!"

"'e seems to be most insistent," a dry voice put in. The Spy detached himself from a patch of shadow and, cigarette in hand, looked bemusedly down at the Pyro and her fish-out-of-water impression. "Perhaps it would be best to let ze little firebug keep 'is mask, _non? _I would not want to be ze doctor who made him unhappy, once ze cease-fire ends."

"_Und du hast _knowledge of medicine?" The Medic adjusted his glasses, giving the Spy a cold stare.

"_Non. _Zis makes two of us." The Spy neatly dodged the Heavy, who had reacted to that particular insult with less than graceful acceptance. "Think of zis as 'preventative care.' You let ze Pyro keep 'is mask now, and voila, you will not be extinguishing a trouser fire." He grinned, just a little.

The Medic was canny. "Und vhy are you caring?" he said. "You are always playing games of your own, Spy. Zis is another of your little plans?"

"If I told you, I would have to kill you."

"Of course. But ze Pyro cannot keep his mask, or he will die. And if ze idiot is going to kick ze bucket, I vould prefer to do it myself. I am paid to save him from others, not from himself."

The Pyro had taken advantage of the debate to flop a little further away, trying to regain enough strength to get to her feet and run. Unfortunately, she had only to lift her head to see that the way was blocked by the Heavy's boots.

"Stop moving, little fire man," the big Russian said, "or Heavy Weapons Guy will step on you. Is for little fire man's own good."

Now the Medic, the Pyro could deal with. Maybe even the Spy. But while the latter two could argue in circles all day, the Heavy was a much simpler and more forceful creature. Nobody would be able to talk him out of doing what the Medic told him to do. The Pyro, who had spent her whole life absorbed in the study of fire, knew that it was pointless to try and foil something like a flame or the Heavy. No matter how gorgeous the fire was, it would burn you if you didn't wear a suit. At some point, there had to be a compromise.

Her arms were a little stronger now. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and, forcing her fingers to cooperate, managed to unscrew one of the filters. The dry dusty air of the Granary whooshed in through the small gap, feeling almost cool after so long inside the mask.

"Want to keep it," she said. Her voice sounded as strange as ever to her ears. Pitched down, turned ragged by the phlegm in her throat and long years of asbestos exposure, it sounded enough like a man's. "Mine."

"Little fire man spoke!" the Heavy said. He bent down and, with no effort whatsoever, picked up the Pyro with one hand. "Doctor! Little fire man spoke."

The Medic turned, his eyes fixing on the Pyro dangling limply by the back of her suit, and then darting to the filter discarded on the floor. "Zis is irregular," he said, crossing his arms. "But if I do not let zis be, zen I vill haff no peace, never. Pyro, _du arschgesicht, _can you breathe like zat?" The Pyro nodded weakly. "Zen zere ve are. You vill come to ze infirmary und ve vill put oxygen mask over zat rubber zing of yours. You vill stay there overnight. If you do not, I vill get scissors, cut zat zing off you vhile you zleep, und I vill give ze whole team a good look at vhat must be ze deformation of ze century. Zis vill be ze punishment if you are ever anyzing less zan such a model patient of restraint and good behavior zat petunias bloom out of ze bedpan. Is zis underztood?" The Pyro nodded again, not quite daring to speak, and the Medic looked satisfied. "Zen bring him along, Herr Heavy. Zis whole ridiculous mess has diztracted me from my vork for too long already."

As the Heavy moved towards the door of the infirmary, still with the Pyro dangling from one hand, his passenger risked a quick look back down the hall. The Spy was still there, lighting a fresh cigarette, but even as the Pyro looked he touched his watch and faded away into the background.

With much grumbling and sarcasm, the Medic ordered the Pyro into a cot in the infirmary and strapped the oxygen mask on over the denuded gas mask. Then, for no discernible reason, he rolled up her sleeve and jabbed an IV into it. If he had had access to embarrassing hospital gowns, the Pyro suspected that she would have been forced into one of them; while she was, in fact, clinically insane, she wasn't stupid enough to think that the Medic hadn't been severely ticked off by the whole affair. Instead of arguing, she sat quietly, listening to the hiss of the oxygen. She flicked her lighter once or twice for amusement until the doctor made her stop.

Of course, now she knew that the infirmary had oxygen canisters on hand. And it had only been the previous February, when the Apollo 1 mission had gone so horribly wrong thanks to the pure oxygen in the capsule . . . She leaned back a bit and let her imagination run wild, picturing dancing orange lights across the ceiling and smoke leaking from under the door. It did wonders for her mood.

The news that the Pyro had collapsed due to smoke inhalation spread rapidly to the rest of the team. Two or three of them even stopped by to gawk, possibly hoping that an incapacitated Pyro would reveal something that she normally wouldn't. The Scout even gave her a can of Bonk, swearing that it always made him feel better "as long as y'don't mind the little trolls'n'stuff that follow ya 'round." The sight of the Pyro with oxygen mask and IV seemed to creep him out, though, and he didn't stay long.

It wasn't until early in the morning, when the shadows had retreated across the the infirmary floor and the melodious sound of that morning's food fight drifted through the vents, that the Heavy returned. The Pyro was still sitting up in bed, her mind blissfully lost in dreamy thoughts of fire, when the door creaked open and the light from the hallway was temporarily blocked out by what appeared to be a shaved King Kong. It took her a moment to come back to earth and realize that it was, in fact, just the Heavy Weapons Guy.

Maybe she shouldn't have drunk that Bonk.

"Hello, little fire man," the Heavy rumbled. "Doctor sends me to check on you, be sure that you are not dead, _da_? You are not dead?"

The Pyro shook her head carefully. Instead of leaving, though, the Heavy carefully closed the door behind him and cocked his head.

"Why you wear mask, little fire man?" he said slowly. "Doctor wears mask, but only when surgeries get messy. Little fire man is not always on fire, _da?"_

For a moment, the Pyro considered what would happen if she told the Heavy the truth. What _would _happen? Well . . . if she wanted to be honest, not a lot. The Heavy was uncomplicated, and if he had any particular inclinations which would make trouble for her, she had never seen any evidence of it. (As far as she could tell. She would be the first to admit that humans were a closed book to her. A book that smelled like pork roast when it burned.) The only change she could imagine immediately would be a guffaw, followed by being addressed as "little fire girl."

Unfortunately, in addition to being uncomplicated, the Heavy couldn't keep a secret to save his life. If he knew, the team would know. And then there would be drama and fighting and arguing and words like "lady," which to the Pyro meant "sign that we're not going to spend our day arguing instead of killing people." And that was very, very boring.

"It's friendly," she said. She hadn't quite been thinking about what she meant when she said it; fire, fire was her friend, but so was the mask, because like a good friend it protected her from the dull arguments. But the Heavy lit up when she said it.

"Mask is like Sasha?" he said. For a moment, there was almost a smile on his broad face. Then he stumped over to the bed and laid one gigantic hand on the Pyro's head. He didn't seem to notice when the Pyro's chin flopped onto her chest with the weight of the appendage. "I understand. I not give up Sasha, even if doctor say so." He patted her on the head, and the Pyro felt the mattress creak as she was sunk into it. "Little fire man is stupid, but it is good stupid. That is only smart kind of stupid. Pyro is credit to team."

And with that he left, leaving a bruised Pyro to contemplate the strange and uncomfortable fact that apparently, some things are not quite as uncomplicated as they seem.


	5. Burned Out

**Author's Note:** This chapter should be blamed on RocketLawnchair, the excellent author of "Smoke and Mirrors." She got me thinking about the dynamic between the Pyro and the Scout, with the result that I decided to move up the Scout's chapter significantly. This follows right on the heels of the previous chapter.

I've been making some changes to how I write the Pyro's dialogue in this chapter, in order to make it a little more understandable to the reader. Unfortunately, wanting to accurately reproduce the sound of the Pyro's in-game mumbling _and _have the character be intelligible is pretty much a losing battle, but I gave it a shot.

Aspects of this chapter were inspired by the latest updates, including the Pyro's snazzy new hat.

"Mmphpry!"-Pyroese for "Victory!"

**Disclaimer:** Team Fortress 2 and all associated characters and concepts are property of Valve, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Burned Out**

The Pyro blinked slowly as she awoke, automatically scanning the room for threats and fires. Though her head felt uncharacteristically fuzzy, one breath told her that she was in the Granary: that thick dry air was unmistakable. She sat up, feeling her head throb and rubbing her hands over her face as she tried to piece together the events of the previous day. She had the unsettling idea that she'd dreamed, which didn't happen often, and it tended to leave her a bit confused.

Fortunately, the blackened remains of her worktable reminded her of what had happened the night before. Her project gone wrong, the trip to the infirmary, the Heavy Weapons Guy being incomprehensible. She didn't like incomprehensible things, so she automatically reached for her lighter.

It was when she spotted it in its usual place—sitting neatly on her bedside table, next to the car battery that she'd never gotten around to properly rewiring—that she also realized that she was, in fact, in her own room. And maskless. She frowned a little, running her hands over her face again, trying to think. Last she knew, she had been in the infirmary. The Heavy Weapons Guy had come to see her. She had had something to drink and fallen back asleep, her mask still on.

So why was she in her room now? The Pyro clambered stiffly out of bed, kicking aside the red file folders that were littering the dank, musty carpet. The Medic must have given her something to make her pass out, she decided. Something in that IV. And then . . . he had taken off her mask?

The Pyro's fists clenched, and the cheap plastic of the lighter's casing squeaked under her grip. That rat. That, that, that _cinder! _She was going to find him and make him squeal like a Scout under a blowtorch. His beautiful blue coat would catch fire so easily. She could imagine it already, those cheap nylon ties he wore smouldering and melting before finally turning into a blackened crisp, the frames of his glasses warping, the glass pieces' soft _tink, chink _when they finally cracked. He would cool into a charred skeleton. Growling, she seized her mask, promising herself that he would shriek as she burned him for taking the mask-

-which was here, its filters screwed together and its buckles neatly tightened. Just like she always left it before she went to bed.

Oh.

Never mind, then.

Mmmphing softly to herself, the Pyro settled the mask on her head. Her stormy mood vanished instantly as the familiar hood slid into place: the Medic had _not _taken her mask, which meant her life was much less complicated and confusing than she had thought it would be only a few seconds before. Therefore, there was no reason to be upset. She briefly regretted the lost opportunity to roast a teammate . . . but oh, well. She could take it out on the RED Medic the next time they met.

The fact that she had fallen asleep in her own room (after neatly putting away her mask), but didn't remember doing so, might have been considered slightly troubling to a normal mind. The Pyro, however, hadn't been within spitting distance of a normal mind in years. Her brain often blanked out on the battlefield, when the tensions were running high and the fire was all around her. All the memory gap indicated was that some time between her hours in the Infirmary and her awakening, there must have been a really wonderful battle. That was a cheering prospect, even if her headache dampened the mood slightly.

Feeling puckish, the Pyro rooted among her collection of hats. In addition to the usual, there was now a slightly charred Mexican sombrero. When had she gotten that? Whenever she had, though, she liked it. The firebug jauntily placed the sombrero atop her mask and stepped out into the corridor, almost slipping on one of the red file folders as she did so.

The Granary was . . . quiet. The Pyro cocked her head, listening. Not just quiet in the normal Granary sort of way, which just meant no gunfire in the background, but actively silent. No whirring of the Sentries, no muffled footsteps of the Heavy Weapons Guy, no clanking as the Soldier banged his entrenching tool against the wall to get someone's attention. Just the rustle of the sparse plantlife and the whistle of the wind through the base.

For a moment the Pyro just stood still, listening. It was . . . pure, in its way. No human sounds, no complications. Just the cleanliness of natural forces. Simple. Perfect. Fiery.

At which point, during one of the firestarter's few moments of bliss, her musings were interrupted by a loud "BONK!"

No, not just the _sound _"bonk," but someone actively saying the word. Which, even with the Pyro's sometimes-shaky recognition capabilities, meant only one person. She frowned momentarily before turning, peering down the corridor at the source of the interruption. The BLU Scout was sauntering towards her, a can of his favorite beverage in one hand, the Sandman propped on his shoulder.

"Bonk!" he shouted again as he drained the can and, almost too fast for the Pyro's eyes to follow, chucked the can in the air and batted it away. "Yeaaahhh! Line drive to deep left centah field. The crowd goes wild!"

"Rrrouhh!" the Pyro called out. As usual, the name was mangled by her mask, but most of the BLU team had learned to at least guess at the content of her mumblings by now. The Scout spotted her, and a huge grin lit up his face. He jogged towards her and, to her great surprise, flung an arm around her shoulders.

"Pyro! Dude! I just wanna say, I'm real sorry I called you a bib-wearin' dope that one time. You're cool, bro. _Wicked _cool." The Scout was grinning, and he still hadn't taken his arm off her, which was beginning to make the Pyro antsy. "How ya feelin'?"

"Uhhmm . . . " A response that needed no translation. "Hokay."

"How's the head? I figger yer gonna have a headache for 'bout another hour or so, 'til it all finishes wearin' off." The Scout let go, thankfully: the Pyro's lighter finger had begun to twitch. "Ya gotta take it real slow and remember, don't make no sudden movements or go chasin' after anybody that wasn't here yestaday."

"Hokay," the Pyro said again. She had frankly no idea what the Scout was talking about, but he was correct about the headache; there was still a dull throbbing ache in the front of her skull, as if she'd clonked herself with her own air compressor. How he knew, she couldn't guess. Had he ever died of smoke inhalation? Her memory was spotty at best.

The Scout, as usual, seemed unable to sit still. He was swinging his bat, grinning as broadly as ever and keeping up a one-man monologue about . . . something. The Pyro, frankly, was in the dark.

"I swear, dude, it was legendary. Like Mickey Mantle on acid or somethin'. We were all like 'yaaaaaa!' and they were like 'oh, shit, dude, no!' and then it was all like FWA-KOOM!" The Scout made an enthusiastic hand gesture. Judging by the expansiveness of that gesture, he was referring either to a massive explosion or the "Ladies of BLU" calendar's Miss October. "And afterwards, 'course, Fritz gave me a huge lecture about 'ya shouldn't go givin' dangerous substances to crazy people,' but I was like 'no way, deutschbag, my pal Pyro can handle it.' Huh?"

"Mmmmph," the Pyro said neutrally. She still had no idea what the Scout was talking about, but evidently yesterday's skirmish had left him with a lot of energy to burn off. Well, good for him. But normally he had other things to do—bother the Medic, bother the Spy, bother the Heavy, bother the Demoman, that sort of thing. "Rrouhh?" she said. "Hwherr hiih heveryhonn?"

"Where-? Oh, they're hidin'." The Scout swung his bat again, rattling it against the concrete wall. The Pyro winced and clamped her gloved hands over her ears, making the Scout look guilty. "Oops. Sorry, dude, I forgot. But yeah, Medic put everyone on lockdown until we were sure ya were back to normal. I'm supposedta be in my room too. But, I figger ya needed to hear from someone else who'd been there, y'know? Make sure y'were recoverin' okay. Plus, I was feelin' kinda bad about that 'bib-wearin' dope' thing." He broke out into a laugh, startling the Pyro. "Plus, I just hadda tell you. Spy's _spooked._ He ain't never gonna get that gasoline smell outta his fancy suit."

"Uhhh . . . hokay." That was the Pyro's word of the day, it seemed. "Hwhhyy theyh hidinhh? Bahhle hgo bahh?"

The Scout snickered again. "Ya could call it that. You scared 'em good." Then his exuberant stride faltered, and for a second, he glanced down at the Pyro with a faint expression of surprise. "Everythin' okay in there, dude?"

"Hhyeah," the Pyro said. She shrugged exaggeratedly, attempting to convey confusion. The Scout didn't get it.

"C'mon, bro. If they're all too chicken to come outta their rooms, that means we get first crack at the dispensers!" He grabbed her arm and yanked, jolting the Pyro off-balance. Nobody _ever _grabbed her, least of all the Scout, and she was too startled to object as he hauled her down the hall towards the common room. "I got first dibs on all the sandwiches, though. Tons-a-Fun hoards those things like they were goin' outta style. C'mon!"

* * *

Half an hour later, the Pyro did indeed have to admit that being almost alone in the base had its privileges. She and the Scout (mostly the Scout, with her tentatively following his lead) had raided the various vending machines and dispensers, then promptly co-opted the most comfortable sofa in the common room—the one most often occupied by the Medic and the Spy. The Scout was chomping his way through his third sandwich, discarding the toothpicks and flinging the olives at the wall. The Pyro had unscrewed a filter from her mask, and now she tentatively sipped Blu Streak through a straw and nibbled on a square of Dalokohs bar.

The Scout was chattering again. The aftermath of the battle yesterday seemed to have put him in a good mood—so good that whatever fear of the Pyro he had previously held had vanished. After a few minutes, the Pyro had begun to learn to tune it out. With none of the other normal sounds of base life to interrupt her thoughts, the Scout's yammering faded into agreeable white noise.

" . . . KABLOOEY and it just goes up . . ."

" . . . I swear they were shittin' their pants. Goofy-ass pants, too, stupid shit to wear in the middle of a desert. Mexico's in the desert, right? . . ."

" . . . and when he just got that look on his face! I swear, dude, if ya were a chick I'd've married ya after that, no homo . . . "

" . . . so I'm probably gonna be on dish duty for the next billion years. The Administrator was hoppin' mad . . ."

" . . . ever seen a six-hundred-pound Russkie cry? 'Cause now I have. And it. Was. Bitchin'! I wish I had a camera, would'a been a great thing to write home to Ma about . . ."

" . . . never did find out what happened to their briefcase, though. Prolly got burned up, huh? . . ."

Briefcase? Oh, that was a good sign. "Hwe gohh briehhcahh?" she said, sitting up. "Mmphpry!" She liked it when they got the briefcase. Good guys won, bad guys lost, and fire scorched the earth clean of the human infection. It was a nice feeling. She flicked the straw away and finished her Blu Streak in one gulp, ignoring the fact that the Scout had stopped chattering. It wasn't until she had lowered the now-empty bottle that she realized he was looking at her with an odd expression on his face.

"You _sure _you're okay, mumbles?" The Scout scratched his ear, confused. "I'd'a thought ya'd be a little happier about all that . . . y'know, considerin' how wild it was and all." As the Pyro set down the empty bottle, his face cleared. "Oh. _Oh. _Ya don't remember, do ya?"

The Pyro shrugged. "Hii all a bihh hof ha hblanhh," she admitted. It took the Scout a moment to puzzle out the word _blank _(probably because, whether it be a wall or a round, few things were blank in the lives of the BLU team) but when he did, he nodded as if having some great scientific hypothesis confirmed. Which was frankly weird for the Pyro.

While the Scout was almost as simple as the Heavy, he was simple in different ways. The Scout was all about himself, a concept the Pyro didn't really understand. His victories, his defeats, his stash of porn and energy drinks—his world revolved around himself. Having him look at her with what appeared to be understanding and—was that sympathy? She really didn't know—was downright creepy.

"Yeah, prolly shoulda guessed," he said, putting down his half-eaten sandwich and sprawling backwards on the couch. "Normally ya can tell when they got that kinda problem, but no offense, big guy, your face ain't the easiest to read, y'know?" He picked a bit of mystery meat out of his teeth. "Ya mean y'really don't remember anythin'?"

The Pyro shook her head, still mystified.

"Huh. Well, yeah, that definitely explains some stuff." The Scout's head lolled back. It surprised the Pyro how well the Scout could sprawl; she had never seen him so relaxed, not when she was around, but now he seemed perfectly at ease and was consequently taking up an alarming amount of space on the couch. She scrunched away from him. "I mean, evrabody gets it a bit different, right? It's one a' the reasons Medic got his panties in a bunch after the battle yesterday. Goin' on and on and on about how good results ain't worth a battle turnin' into a bigass clusterfuck, and how civilians don't respawn and all, and how oh yeah, it was _my _fault and _I _was gonna have to dig graves for the whole band." He huffed out an irritated breath. "But I didn't know you were gonna go cuckoo for Crit-a-Cola, did I? I was just tryin' to be nice. A can or two always cheers _me _up when I've got real fucked up."

It was at that point that the shoe—an exceedingly battered shoe, stained with mysterious substances and bearing several marks from the fingernails of the people whose throats it had been planted on—dropped for the Pyro. She turned to the Scout and pointed to him before laying a hand on her chest. "Yhoo," she said slowly. "Yhoo gahhv mhe Bhonnkh?"

"Yeah. Day before yestaday in the infirmary, remember?" The Scout grinned a little.

"Dhayy _befohh _yehtadaa?" The Pyro rubbed one gloved hand over the back of her mask. The poignant gesture of confusion was somewhat spoiled by the high-pitched squeak of rubber-on-rubber. "Whaa happenh?"

"Dude, it was _wicked. _I still ain't sure what really went down, y'know. But around the time you threw the first dead mariachi at 'em, those RED pussies were runnin' scared. I was gonna ask where the heck ya _found _a mariachi band out here, but dude, seriously, I been where you are right now." The Scout thumped his chest. "I'm with ya on that one, bro. Bonk amnesia is brutal."

For a moment, the Pyro felt faint as she glanced around the room. The near-deserted base, with everyone marooned in their rooms. The charred sombrero. The mysterious, official-looking red file folders all over her floor. The lack of Sentries, even . . . She groaned and dropped her face into her hands. She suspected that her life was about to become very, very complicated.

"I . . . uhhh . . . di'int dho hanythin htupidh, dhi I?" she mumbled. The Scout frowned.

"Well, ya kinda dry-humped the Spy."

"_Whaaa?"_

The Scout shook his head. "I wouldn't freak about it, man. He's French. I think he was just pissed that you got gas all over his suit."

At which point the Pyro, whose headache was not being improved by the knowledge that her particular brand of sociopathy apparently did not combine well with sugar and radiation, put a couch cushion over her face and said some very bad words.


	6. A Little Less Conflagration

**Author's Note:** No, I haven't abandoned this story! Just been busy elsewhere. But for your consideration, here's a new (albeit short) chapter. This one is more of a gag than a full story.

**Disclaimer:** Team Fortress 2 and all associated characters and concepts are property of Valve, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

* * *

**Chapter 6: A Little Less Conflagration**

* * *

"Tennnnn-HUT!"

The Pyro did her best to straighten her spine, but between the weight of the flamethrower she was now shouldering and the heavy air tank hitting her right in the small of the back, the best she was able to do was a slightly less round-shouldered slouch. Thankfully, the Soldier didn't seem to notice; with her heavy suit and the innumerable straps actually holding all of her equipment to her body, it was generally difficult for anyone to pick out the exact line of her shoulders or back.

Besides, Pyro was much less of an interesting target than other, more French members of the team. She raised her chin slightly, accidentally bumping the edge of the filter against one of her nitro grenades, and watched with mild amusement as the Soldier attempted to shout the Spy into line.

"Zis is ridiculous," the Spy said flatly, flicking his cigarette case open. "We are not army men for you to move around in your little board games. Zis attempt at discipline will only cause more difficulties."

"SILENCE!" the Soldier roared. "This is AMERICA, and we don't take any lip from Frog Princes! You should be on your knees thanking God you have the opportunity to serve the Yew-nited States of the USA, not running around being all independent-minded like a goddamn Communist! STRAIGHTEN UP, MAGGOT!"

The Spy didn't straighten up. Instead, he selected a cigarette, carefully lit it, and then walked off the lineup. The Soldier gawked at him, flabbergasted, and the rest of the BLU team exchanged curious looks. None of them had ever actually just tried _walking away_ from Soldier's lectures before. After a moment's hesitation, Scout, Sniper, Medic, Heavy and Demoman followed suit, leaving just Engie and Pyro to face the wrath of the scorned Soldier.

"TRAITORS!" the helmeted man bellowed. "COWARDS! DESERTERS! HIPPIES!" He foundered for a moment, momentarily lost for a truly devastating insult. _"VEGETARIANS!" _he screamed, veins in his neck standing out red and purple.

Engie stifled a snicker, and Soldier rounded on him, his face the color of well-cooked meat. "DO NOT THINK YOU'RE GETTING OFF EASY JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN LISTEN TO ORDERS," he added, because the Soldier took a little time to come down from top volume and if anything was worth doing, he saw it as worth doing all out. "LOYALTY IS NOT ENOUGH, SOLDIER! YOU MUST HAVE GUTS! IF YOU DON'T HAVE GUTS, YOU CAN'T MAKE SAUSAGE! MAN IS NOT MAN WITHOUT SAUSAGE! DO YOU GET ME?"

The Engineer nodded, manfully swallowing a guffaw, but Soldier didn't pay attention. He turned smartly on his heel and stuck his face into Pyro's. Pyro recoiled slightly as bulging red-veined eyes, overshadowed by a brim of badly-fitted helmet, filled her vision.

"AND YOU!" he shouted. His breath fogged up Pyro's eyepieces, and all she could see was a vague mass of Angry Person. The smell of aftershave and barbecue momentarily overwhelmed the mask's filters. "I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'RE EVEN A MAN, AND THAT SICKENS ME. HOW CAN I TRUST A SOLDIER THAT COULD BE EATING SOY BEHIND MY BACK? DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY, PRIVATE!"

"Hokayh," Pyro said, because why not? She didn't have anything to burn right now. She carefully set her flamethrower down on the ground and went down on her knuckles, counting out twenty pushups behind her mask. After running around all day, every day with almost a hundred pounds of gear, twenty was _easy._

The Soldier grunted, momentarily satisfied—or more likely, just not able to find immediate fault with anything. "DISMISSED!" he added, did an about-face, and marched off to the sound of his own different drummer. Pyro carefully collected her things and checked her flamethrower for damage, ignoring the Engineer's curious expression.

"Well, what d'you know," he said, removing his helmet and scratching his buzzcut scalp. "I thought we'd be here salutin' the flag all afternoon. Smart thinkin', Smokey Joe, doin' those pushups. I think he gets confused when someone doesn't argue with him."

Pyro shrugged. What else was she supposed to do? Combat wouldn't resume until tomorrow morning, and Medic had threatened to sedate her if she set any more of the base on fire; she might as well follow Soldier's orders as anything else. She liked it when his face turned all red and purple. "Juh borehh," she said, tightening her air compressor's straps. "Hwhyh hoo sayhh?"

"Why did I stay?" Engineer said, after puzzling out her syllables for a moment. Pyro nodded. "Well, I'm not saying I wasn't payin' attention to our teammate, but I might've just had a successful test of these fine puppies." With a grin, he popped a couple of little rounds of metal out of his ears. "Filters, carefully calibrated to eliminate all non-essential sounds. Pop in a couple of these babies and even the Demoman's snoring won't keep you awake."

"Hoh," Pyro said, because there didn't seem to be anything else to say. "Hat's nihh."

"Ain't it?" Engie said. His grin widened, making Pyro think of her own face in the mirror. He was happy. "I really love my job, little buddy. I really do."

* * *

He did, Pyro had realized some time ago. And it worried her.

Oh, not very much. Engie wasn't a broken gas tank, or a nasty Spy, or anything else that would really cause her trouble. And he created dispensers and helped keep all the little things around the base fixed, which was very helpful of him.

But to be honest, he was a little . . . crazy.

Pyro understood simplicity. She craved it and thrived on it, enjoying the beauty of the straightforward solution and the ease of life. The simpler things were for her, then the happier she would be, because that would be more time she could spend basking in the warmth of her most favorite thing of all. All the other members of the team had their little obsessions about things that were so _useless _in her opinion. Did it really matter if your clothes were stained? They would still cover you, wouldn't they? And who cared how food tasted? It was just fuel. Did fire complain about the kind of things it ate?

And of all the complicated people with their complicated little obsessions, Engie was the most mixed-up of all. He burned in his own way, like a flame that was leaping from one thing to the next and just gobbling up everything it saw: always moving, always working, always munching up raw resources and spitting out . . . things. New robots, new weapons, new this and that and the other thing. It made Pyro's head spin.

She'd been in his room once, looking for a spare screwdriver, and been thoroughly disturbed by it. The walls were packed with shiny creations that did all sorts of things. One was laundering Engie's clothes, one had perched in the windowsill and was installing some kind of filter over the screen, and one was knitting a sweater. They were things that did things. Things that made_ complications_, because Engie couldn't just leave well enough alone.

Fire was beautiful. Why should she try to make it better? A hand was a hand, so why should he chop his off and stick a gun on the stump? What was the _point?_

Sometimes he meddled where he didn't belong. She had caught him building fireworks once, and that was all right, but then he set them off and they made pictures in the sky and wrote words in explosions of color. She'd watched silently and calmly, and then when he went to bed, she broke his neck and set fire to his room and wound up burning the entire dormitory down and everyone else died too and then the Administrator was _extremely _angry because she had to arrange respawns during offtime and Soldier had made her do so many pushups that her arms had even begun to hurt.

Engie didn't make fireworks any more. She was glad he respected fire now.

She supposed he believed in what he did. The others certainly did. They all thought sideways in their strange little ways, with the Spy believing in nothing but the mission and Heavy in Sasha, and the Medic in his research that made him stay up late and occasionally shoot her sharp sideways glances in the hallways. (Was it really her fault that isopropyl alcohol burned? No. No, it wasn't.) But none of them tried to make their lives as complicated as he did, or added special things that would complicate it for others as well.

Sometimes there were good days. Engie seemed to be fond of her, in some strange way. On the good days she would curl up by the fire in what he called the 'tinker shack,' out on the edge of the base where stray explosions or suddenly-sentient robots wouldn't cause too much damage. She'd make herself comfortable and Engie, playing with a puzzle in one hand, would read to her from a book. He had a nice voice, all deep and smooth and calm, and he almost never yelled. When he read stories about aliens and hydroelectric fusion capacity and Australian Christmas to her, the fires inside dimmed themselves to a calm glow and smoldered without fear of water. They'd eaten enough, and could wait to break free and devour everything in their paths.

But really, that man was _crazy._


End file.
